“Long Sutton will no doubt be relishing the return fixture at home where the pitch will be more to our looking” (Long Sutton, 2017) – Relish they did.

It was always going to be a tough day for the Cambridge South 1st XI. We had thirteen, which went down to twelve on the Friday evening, which went down to eleven on the Saturday. Which went back to twelve when Louisa kindly stepped in to take up the whole of her Saturday to allow us some subbing options. To quote Long Sutton’s match report against us back in October: “The pitch looked immaculate, although it flattered in its deception and it played like a trampoline.” I wish I could say the same about their pitch. There was no deception to it, alas, it played like it looked; slow and sandy. And so did we.

The long and the short of it; nothing quite came together for us. None of us had our best of days, and none of us played to the conditions. We watched time and time again as Long Sutton intercepted our snail pace balls as they left us for dust. Nine out of twelve Man of the Match votes went to Loopy or Blythe, which demonstrated how well they played, Blythe coming out on top. She played with such determination and grit, making tackle after tackle, landing on the beach time after time.

Long Sutton were lucky with their first few goals, one off Alice W and another a reverse blade gone wrong which looped over Loopy’s head. The rest were well constructed and completely deserved as we didn’t shut them down and stop them from running. We had no such luck as our opportunities shaved the post time and time again. Lemon of the Match came to me, for not being able to find a line that didn’t exist… I question my team mates on how they find that acceptable Lemon material! We battled hard but couldn’t make use of our opportunities as Long Sutton kept on smothering us. Sometimes it’s just not your day.

How close is Long Sutton to the beach anyway?